INBOX: Els Vanden Meersch – Mastering the Curtains
M HKA reserves its fifth floor for surprising interventions and intimate pop-up presentations. INBOX is a place that inspires and surprises, one that offers us a glimpse into the world of passionate thinkers and doers. With INBOX, M HKA creates a physical space in which the museum addresses often-recurring questions.
In the periods between the various events, we present a selection of our collection works, with particular attention to video art.
INBOX can be visited for free.
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The exhibition and book Mastering the Curtains are the result of an intensive research of two perspectives in the Islamic Republic of Iran: on the one hand the public and transparent, on the other hand the hidden.
The first approach focuses on the content and implementation in the public space of the old popular and politicized street theatre Taziyeh. The second approach explores the hidden world of the Sufis and their political difficulties within the current policy.
Originally, these seeming opposites have common ground in Iranian collective memory through a rendition of social and spiritual resistance.
Solving the individual in the common is very important in mysticism as well as in Taziyeh.
The four-year research process involved continuous oscillation between exploration and self-reflection. Reflections on religion, other and I, position and opposition, private and public, transparency and control are combined with series of images as in a 'flow of consciousness’. This results in a multimedia use of text, images and sound that boosts the simultaneity of places and times.
The social potential of secular mysticism is distilled from this research.
Mastering the Curtains is a PhD in Visual Arts at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp and Antwerp University.
The book Mastering the Curtains is published by Art Paper Editions and can be purchased for €18 during the preview on 09.03.2017 or on the website: www.artpapereditions.org
For more information and photos, please contact:
Bert De Vlegelaer
Press Officer
E bert.devlegelaer@muhka.be
T +32 (0)3 260 99 91